Congress lauds UPA initiative on disarmament

New Delhi, Mar 5 (UNI) The Congress today lauded the UPA government at the Centre for presenting an "Initiative to the Conference on Disarmament" in Geneva recently, and appealed to the nations to support the initiative to make the world a more stable, peaceful and prosperous place.

"The Initiative reflects the consistency of our commitment and the legacy of the Late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi for a nuclear weapons free and non-violent world,"AICC Spokesman Manish Tiwari told mediapersons here.

He said the Indian Initiative drew its essence from the vision of Gandhi who, almost two decades ago, provided impetus to the movement for a fear free and non-violent world when he addressed the UN General Assembly.

"The UPA government had presented the initiative, drawing inspiration from the Rajiv Gandhi Plan for Nuclear Disarmament and rejuvenating India's vision for Comprehensive Nuclear Disarmament," he said.

Mr Tiwari said the Indian Initiative called for reaffirmation of the unequivocal commitment of all nuclear weapon states to the goal of complete elimination of nuclear weapons and reduction of the salience of nuclear weapons in the security doctrines.

It also called for negotiation of a global agreement among nuclear weapon states on no-First-use of nuclear weapons and negotiation of a universal and legally binding agreement on non-use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapon states.

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